Pyro's in the house?

[SanTai]

You are describing a reasonable routine. But what troubles me is that you are saying that it is the inexperienced shooters that do the jobs requiring reloading.

How long is the education required for a license? It sounds like a quite complex manoeuvre when the adrenaline is up, if you do not got routine.

On another note, I have trouble seeing how it could be economically beneficial to hire an extra person or two(or three for that matter) for doing the reload than hiring a bigger truck for the mortars and spending an extra hour building racks which will be safer.
The last offer I got for complete 3" hdpe mortar tubes was at the same price as for two 3" Yung Feng shells(final price, including shipping and handling). hdpe is cheap and durable.

Show design being my main interest, splitting the focus from only shooting to reloading on a well designed show seems like a pity. Like offering design for getting shells in the air.

 

[MPowers]

When I first learned to shoot, sometime just this side of the Jurassic, (early '60's) The guy that taught me, always placed a 1/2 strip of Kleenex or toilet paper over the end of the mortars. A dot of scotch tape at each end kept it in place, made it real easy to spot hang fires. We did use electric igniters (mostly) but the firing mechanism was crude and one-off for each event. The least sophisticated was a group of nail boards, the most complex was a 24 push button control board, with Jones plugs on the back. We had several groups of numbered plugs and each was plugged into the back of the control board in sequence. The only mortar I ever reloaded was when I was working for my Uncle ... Sam that is!. Umm .... different time, different place, never mind.

 

[DiscoBoxer]

SanTai, the method described here is one of many that are used. My preference is to script every display and fire electronic, but budget conditions and sponsor expectations do not always allow for me to do so. I agree with your points as my favorite thing to do is design shows. We specialize in large multi-site synchronized displays and many of our greatest elements of design are lost when shows are fired manually.

In the States, municipalities are allowed to fire their own display's without a licensed contractor onsite. Many of the cities that will choose to do this are small towns that do not have large budgets like the bigger cities. They have all the staff, usually fire department, that they can dedicate to the display. Many of these men and women take pride in participating in our Nation's Independence celebration that there is usually too many people that want to help and some are turned away. However, these cities do not invest in their own equipment and have minimal means when it comes to their display, that they may do once a year for the 4th. We rent mortars to help them, but often times they choose more shells and less mortars so that they can provide more shells in the sky.

Errors can happen in the heat of the moment and this is another reason why I do not prefer this method. Most in the fire departments have gone through training in regards to shooting and display site safety in these types of situations, as well as training required in their career to keep a straight mind and the adrenaline at bay. In fact most of my seasonal staff are firemen that started out doing displays for their towns and loved it so much that they wanted to do more. We hire them during our peak season and they can further their experience on each display they participate in.

The US federal BATFE license does not require any training in regards to the use of explosives. It is more for background clearance, administration and compliance for things like storage. Some of the states do require training for public displays that is either provided by the state or accepted from PGI.

 

[DiscoBoxer]

....... 1/2 strip of Kleenex or toilet paper over the end of the mortars. A dot of scotch tape at each end kept it in place, made it real easy to spot hang fires.

We used to teach people to do something like this in the field, except we would just use scotch tape across the mortar mouth. What we learned is that at the end of the show, people would become too dependent on seeing the tape, that they would lower their guard when verifying that the mortars are clear. We also use plastic caps that protect the loaded mortars from weather elements but again require all mortars to be visually verified, not just once but by two different people.

Sometimes racks are built without spacing between the mortars and they are butted together in the rack (we build our racks with spacing between every mortar to reduce a total rack failure when something goes wrong). I have seen the tape get burned or blasted off from the pressure of mortar fire directly next to it.

Good concept but should not be used to replace actual visual inspection of the mortar after the display. Another safety note, when verifying mortars, I use a flashlight and a mirror on a stick. I see many people verify by gradually looking down the mortar at an angle and I don't like that. Better to be safe than sorry....use a mirror.

 

[WooferHound]

The company that I worked for would tape Aluminum Foil over the mortar. This would prevent falling sparks from igniting adjacent mortars.

 

[DiscoBoxer]

The company that I worked for would tape Aluminum Foil over the mortar. This would prevent falling sparks from igniting adjacent mortars.

This is still a common practice, but it adds to the mess at the end of a display. We use it quite a bit for "chained" effects, since the caps can sometimes interfere with the quickmatch. Makes me wish I could find a cheap biodegradable, flame retardent alternative.....but don't think it's likely to be cheaper then foil.